Patterns as Presence Everywhere by Ryan Thayer Davis

My work can be viewed in terms of contrasts and contradictions. Clean vs. rough line, texture, and mark. Strong contrasting colors, bad shapes vs. good shapes, thin painting surface vs thick, tossed off moves vs slowly and patiently built ones. Casual vs serious, cultivated vs spontaneous and improvised, loving vs self-destructive. There’s always a danger in image making of being too gratuitous, so I suppose working with contradictions is a sort of self protecting measure, or a way to sew so much doubt that we arrive around the other side, and get towards the truth. In any event, I feel that this type of content is more visceral, fun, and direct for viewers to empathize with and enjoy.